That’s right, I’ve created a 3 column liquid layout web-side that:

• Works in all Browsers
• Needs no dirty hacks
• Easy to use and understand

So web designers, labour no more, I bring you my solution to the age old problem of creating a 3 column liquid layout. 

Drum Roll Please ….

New Wallasean’s Super-Dooper 3 Column Liquid Layout

<table>
    <tr>
         <td style=”width:200px;”>col 1</td>
         <td style=”width:100%;”>col 2</td>
         <td style=”width:200px;”>col 3</td>
    </tr>
</table>

 
At this stage, if you don’t have a wry smile on the face then either:

a) You are one of my regular readers, looking for my latest musings on the global economy, Wirral, Live Music, Poetry and stuff, and it’s gone right over your head.  Apologies to both of you. 

b) You’ve put an axe through your monitor in a fit of rage! 

Ok, now to the serious point of my post, why are so many techy geek types such zealots? 

The humble table has been around since the early days of HTML, certainly when I learned HTML in 1994 it was already around. 

They were always meant for tabular layouts like spreadsheet data, but as CSS hadn’t been invented yet, creative designers hijacked them to help them layout the page the way they wanted. 

Along came CSS and the W3 told us we were bad people for using tables to layout our pages, use CSS instead. 

I’ve no problem with using CSS, I like the concept of CSS, but when it comes to something as simple (at least it was using tables) as a 3 column layout, it is a complete nightmare.  There are entire websites and books dedicated to discovering the holy grail of a 3 column liquid layout using pure CSS, and people have come up with incredibly convoluted solutions using browser bugs and even javascript just to emulate something that was a piece of cake using Tables.  Then there are hundreds of comments from people offering solutions to particular problems in particular browsers. 

Are they nuts?  Do they ever think for themselves, or just follow the crowd?  They really seem to have lost the plot! 

True enough, tables are hard to visualise in your mind, and nested tables are messy, but then div based layouts are equally hard to visualise, nested divs are not much nicer than nested tables, and tables are much more elegant and clean than long winded css to achieve the same thing. 

Take the layout I downloaded today to base our website’s layout on.  You have to put the code for the middle column first then float the left column over and then finally float the right column, with lots of negative margins and other gobbledegook! 

As for future-proofing, they can’t deprecate tables until they find a new way of presenting spreadsheet like data.  I can’t believe that some people use javascript solutions, forcing their users to have javascript turned on, just to recreate what could be done easily in a table. 

In fact the only reasons not to use tables for layout is:

a) The W3 (I wonder if they’ve ever had to create a commercial website) tell you not to.  And they like making rules almost as much as MS like breaking them! 

b) Geeky Zealots will make you feel unclean. 

You take your life in your hands going into a forum and asking “How do I emulate a table layout using  just CSS?”.  Instead of welcoming a new recruit to their way of thinking, some arrogant sod who really needs to get a life, will tear into them just for having the gall to mention tables and layout in the same sentence! 

And because of all that I spent most of today writing (and adapting) a ton of CSS rather than spend 15 minutes creating the same thing in a table, the way I did it 14 years ago! 

I don’t call that progress!

Imagine that someone who used to do your job but gave it up when they won the lottery, then they got bored and offered to do your job for free, leaving you out of work. 

I get the same feeling when I spend months writing software, only for hackers to strip out the security and give my work away for free, and for other programmers to write a similar program and give it away for free. 

The people with time on their hands to do these things either have a job, parents or the tax payer keeping a roof over their head and food on their table.  I depend on the money I get from my software to do the same. 

The internet is full of zealots who seem to think that getting paid for your hard work is evil, at least if you happen to write software for a living. 

Indeed some nutters are even claiming that giving your software away for free (Open Source) is the Christian way to write software, because it helps your fellow man. 

WTF? 

Ok, so having spent months writing software, working late and weekends, when I could have been spending time with my children but chose to work in order to give them a bit of security, I give my work away for free and walk around with a halo above my head. 

What happens if I have a burst pipe?  Even if I scour the churches for a christian plumber, will he really fix my burst pipe for free because I’m a fellow christian who writes software for free? 

There is a pub in Seacome owned by a priest, I wonder if he’d give free pints to myself and my new plumber friend after our hard work.  Will tesco refuse to take money from us for our groceries?  Will the building society wave our mortgage payments since we are such good eggs? 

Indeed, if this helping people for nothing caught on, would the priest/vicar in the church forget he’s a christian when the whip-round comes back empty because nobody has got any cash? 

Indeed one particular fruit cake compared two games writers.  Both worked as hard, but the one who chose to give his software away for free made $200 in donations, whilst the one who sold his game $35,000.  I know which one I’d rather be, but he disagreed – the $200 guy will be remembered long after the $35,000 guy has spent his ill gotten gains.  Apparently. 

He then used the guy who wrote Tetris as an example.  Because he lived in Russia he never saw any of the money the game made.  But if he’d been an American, it seems he would have been a multi-millionaire, but wouldn’t have been so famous. 

Hang on, he’s saying fame is more imporant than money.  But surely a desire to be famous is vanity, and isn’t vanity a sin? 

It just seems a lot of people are blindly jumping on the open source bandwagon and spout anti-microsoft propaganda often from a position of ignorance, yet seem to be totally unaware of the nestle boycott for example. 

It’s sad that so many people think they are changing the world because they use one free browser over another one. 

I do a lot of web development and spend a lot of time researching stuff on the web.  For the past 10 years or so my main browser has been IE.  Guess what, I’ve never had a problem getting pages to render properly (different story with Netscape) or spyware/viruses from my browsing. 

Don’t get me wrong, on balance I think Firefox is a slightly better browser, but when people spout nonsense such as “it revolutionised my internet experience” or “suddenly browsing is fun again” I can only conclude that they’ve been brainwashed or have a clinical need to be seen as one of the gang. 

Indeed if anyone goes into a forum and tries to point out that Firefox is the emperors new clothes, or is in any way critical, they are about as welcome as Gary Glitter at a children’s party, and are subject to a tirade of personal attacks. 

Someone claimed that piclens changed their life.  All I can say is they must have had a pretty dull life, to me it’s just a fancy but ultimately useless application. 

What gets me about Firefox is that it’s meant to be the ultimate finger up to capitalism, yet whilst there are thousands of programmers who contribute their time and talent for free, there are 160 paid employees at the top.  Allegedly they make as much as $50 million a year from search advertising, plus t-shirt and mug sales (actually, aren’t the volunteers the real mugs?) and now this so called “awesome bar” with the ability to track users browsing habits, could be dangerously close to spyware if they ever decide to monetise it. 

I can’t help but think of Animal farm where the pigs (paid Mozilla employees) convince the nice but gullible farm animals (volunteer programmers) that the farmer (Microsoft) is evil and if they work for them instead (without pay) life will be much better, but neglect to mention that life will only be better for the pigs, not the skivvy’s. 

Microsoft need a credible competitor to keep them on their toes, and in that respect Firefox does an admirable job.  But say what you like about Microsoft, they pay their employees and treat them well.

Good night at the Bards last night!  Steve’s new Dalek sketch is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in ages, definitely a highlight of the evening. 

Something that grabbed my attention in the media lately was Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury defending the News of the World’s right to spread gossip and hide under the weaselly excuse they trot out time and again – the publics right/need to know.  Article Here

It seems to me that he’s got his head too wrapped up in theory, and is completely out of touch with reality. 

True enough, there was a time when any whiff of scandal would effectively end the career of anyone in the public eye. 

But having been desensitised by a weekly doze of sleaze-on-sabbath papers, and increasingly desperate-to-attract-ratings story lines such as the long drawn out, yawnsome Bradley/Stacey/Bradley’s Dad love triangle, mean that people no longer care. 

Take David Beckham for example, did his career end after the Rebecca Toilet allegations? 

Companies pay a fortune to David Beckham to use their razors on TV because they know impressionable young men will go out and buy them too.  Are these same gullible young men now under the impression that it’s ok to have a bit on the side, just so long as the media aren’t sniffing about? 

Indeed these papers who offer 15 minutes of fame and large financial rewards to women who can seduce the famous are clearly encouraging this behavior.  It’s like a form of glorified prostitution.  Is this really what Lord Carey is advocating? 

Here is today’s poem

Fabulous riches
And Front Page News
Await the calculating seductress
Whose morals are loose

I’m not on a moral crusade
But I don’t really care who is getting laid

Scandals and Sleaze
Make the media barons wealthy
But as for the moral-wellbeing of the nation
I think it’s a bit unhealthy

After stating that there were no plans to close the historic and iconic SS Peter & Pauls church in New Brighton, the catholic church have done a U-Turn and it is now to close.  I’m used to distrusting politicians, but now you can’t even put any faith in what the church says! 

I’m not a big church goer (I see religion more as an individual thing) but after all the industry that has desserted Merseyside, to see the church giving up too is both surprising and dismaying. 

Whilst this area’s economic fortunes have declined from it’s hey-day, I don’t believe the population has dropped significantly.  They send missionaries out all over the globe to convert people to their way of thinking, yet they seem to be abandoning all the lapsed catholics in New Brighton (or at least making them walk down to Liscard). 

Ordinary people setup a campaign to save the iconic building, yet what have the church done to try and encourage people back?  What have they done to try and engage modern generations? 

Anyway, here comes the poem:

You can’t even trust the church these days
They said SS Peter and Paul’s wouldn’t close
But you can’t believe a word they say

What kind of message does that send to the faithful?
Personally I find it all a bit distasteful

Congregations are down, of that I’ve no doubt
But what have they done to try and sort it out?

Have they even been out to ask the people why
They’d rather spend Sunday morning in bed watching Sky?

In this modern time
With prevalent knife and gun crime
Their task is far from easy,
But to people’s dismay
They’ve chosen to abandon New Brighton, and run away. 

Are they a business with targets to meet?
And their bottom line has simply got them beat?
I thought they were an organisation built on faith,
Yet they abandon the people of New Brighton with such haste

Relinquishing their role
as saver of souls. 

The cynic in me thinks it would take free beer and strippers to increase their flock
But is it right for them to simply give op?